Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Iran and American Conservatives

by Cactus Iran and American Conservatives In Iran, protesters – a mostly young, college educated intellectual urban crowd – are getting their heads bashed in by the regime. Conservatives in the US are championing them and criticizing the administration for doing nothing. I’m curious – over the past few decades, how have conservatives in the […]

by cactus I was going through some old posts of mine looking for something I had written when I stumbled on a gem I had completely forgotten. A few years ago, I had a post that quoted a piece in the American Spectator. Sadly, it seems for some reason they’ve seen fit to take it […]

Wise Words from Carbon Sense Coalition

by reader Sammy Waxman-Markey: Intense Pain, No Environmental Gain I know you guys won’t like the source…. but try to deal with the issue. From this Editorial: If the pending Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill (HR 2454) becomes law, utility bills will soar. Farm and business energy costs will skyrocket — and be passed on […]

The Internet and the Productivity Speedup

Robert Waldmann The unexpected increase in US productivity growth in the 90’s and naughties is an economic puzzle. At the time it was widely argued that investments in information and communications technology had finally finally paid off, that computers and the internet allowed vastly improved corporation wide inventory control and the increased output given inputs […]

Iran, stagflation, unemployment

rdan Barkley Rosser at Econospeak raises several economic points to consider in the current political turmoil in Iran, stagflation (inflation over 17.1%) and significant unemployment (16.3%) among the whole population and perhaps double among the young (2006 data suggests the median age at 24/25 years). …There are various numbers out there, but after digging around […]

A Dan Froomkin Memory

Robert Waldmann The Washington Post just fired Dan Froomkin. This has caused considerable outrage on the web. Interestingly, my personal reaction was that Froomkin doesn’t need the Post — he will get high traffic with a new affiliation or with an independent blog. After the jump a recollection about how Froomkin has been getting in […]

And in a painful decade or three, healthcare changed

lifted from comments, by reader vtcodger Vtcodger says: You’re right that Single Payer is probably the best answer for the US. And it is probably where we will end up. But apparently, we have to beat ourselves up some more before the Washington-NewYork elite are willing to face up to reality. So, we’re going to […]

Regulatory Reform

Robert Waldmann has been playing hooky. Look it’s the end of the semester. My actual job involves some actual work these days (ETA of a Thesis defense 40 minutes). Also, I note no popular demand for my opinions on the Obama administration plan to reform financial regulation, and I still know jack about finance. So […]